Mobile woes: SMS reports failed continually!

Everyone loves to hate their mobile service providers. On January 4, we carried A Ganesh Nadar's account of his cellphone connection going from bad to worse while on tour and asked readers to share similar experiences with us. Here, Mohammad Nadeem tells his story:

I am using a Reliance GSM post paid connection and would like to share my story with readers.

In the initial days, the service used to be perfect, but as the days went by and I paid bills regularly, they problem started cropping up.

First, SMS issues. I use to send SMSes to my frirnds and it never showed a delivery notification on my handset. I would keep on trying and my friends used to receive multiple copies of the same SMS. When I tried to contact the helpline listed with my SIM, it connected to the prepaid department. Irritated with their stupid replies, I visited the nearest customer care centre and they said such a problem is not possible and maybe I am making up stories! I was shocked to hear that.

Call-dropping is another regular issue. The network goes at any time and comes back any time. Yes, but for billing details, you will receive 101 calls from them!

I got a broadband connection too, with Reliance. I complained to the nodal officer about some issues, but to my surprise the mail was returned with a 'mail box full' comment. God knows when these nodal officers work and no idea how these people give such big commitments.

I am just waiting for mobile portability dates so that I will shift to MTNL or some other subscriber. Not to Airtel and Tata... maybe I will consider Vodafone too.

Have you had a nasty cellphone service experience? Share your mobile woes with us. Write in to us at getahead@rediff.co.in (subject line: 'Mobile woes') and we'll feature your story, right here on rediff.com

And here is reader Preethika Krishna's account:

I have terrible stories to tell about Tata Indicom. I consider them one of the worst service providers.

I had bought the V-DATA dialup Internet plan using the USB stick from Tata Indicom a couple of years back. But I closed the connection due to my sudden travel abroad for a year. To buy the connection and SIM card or USB stick, you can always go to a nearby Tata Indicom store and make the purchase at your convenience. But if you want to close the same active connection, the nearby store suddenly becomes helpless and you are directed to go to Tata Indicom's main centre in Bangalore (I stay in Bangalore, readers in Bangalore understand the hardship of driving between Banasankari and Koramangala). All the sales executive in the shop says is that he doesn't have the required access to close the connection. So on the day of travel I had to spend 5 hours closing this connection. The idea behind asking you to come to the main store is to force you to hold the connection, providing as many freebies to them as possible. It was such a horrible experience.

I took the same connection again when I came back after a year. All went well for the first month billing cycle. After paying the first month's bill, I started using the dial-up connection. One fine I day noticed that the connection to the Tata Indicom server was failing, making me feel that there could be possible server issues. But the same thing happened the next day and when I called customer care I got a rude shock -- my account was blocked due to very high usage that had not been paid for!

The previous month's bill was paid only a day ago and it made me wonder how this could have happened. Also, in my plan, I have 300 minutes' free usage, which was also not completely used. I spoke to the poorly-informed customer care again and again. All they could do was register a complaint on the issue and there never returned my calls to explain the situation. This went on for a week (the entire episode needed to be explained again and again, even when there was a reference number) and I had to use strong words with the nodal officer to address the issue.

The expected TUT was 1 hour and I got a response late evening. Another rude shock -- I was told that my connection was barred, since I had made a outgoing call which ran for 36 hours from November 8 till the evening of November 9. I think Tata Indicom can claim this as a record for their new DOCOMO service. Making calls from the USB stick is a rare possibility and I had to explain to customer care that I had only a USB stick for dial-up and there was no mobile device to make outgoing calls.

Also, I asked them to provide sufficient information about the calls made -- the source and receiving number etc but alas, no response. Customer care is only for taking complaints and there is no response provided. All I heard about this issue whenever I called was that work was in progress. I was really frustrated and stopped calling customer care. After 3 days, I got a call from the Tata Indicom office saying that there was an issue with my SIM and it needed to be replaced. A person came and gave me the SIM, saying that it would take 24 hours for my connection to be active (huff!). The issue got resolved for then, but I got stunned when I saw the bill again. No action was taken to reduce the required amount, although Tata Indicom accepted that it was a fault on their side. Again, I had to call customer care and the response was that the issue would be resolved by March 2010 when I called them during November '09. Finally I paid my bill, detecting the call charges that were imposed on me.

Technical issues are bound to occur, but it is the duty of customer care to give the right facts to the user and the user should be adequately compensated or communicated to about the status. It was really frustrating to talk to the customer care and explain the whole story again and again, while they tried to peg the responsibility on somebody else. It goes on and on and on. I had a terrible time with Tata Indicom -- keeping my fingers crossed about next month's bill!